


Take Me Out to the Ball Game

by justhuman



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Baltimore, Baltimore Orioles, Baseball, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 21:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1564919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justhuman/pseuds/justhuman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria receives a package sending her to an out of town meet-up</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Out to the Ball Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).



> Assume spoilers for _Captain America: Winter Soldier_ and Agents of SHIELD through S1.E20 _Nothing Personal_

Maria fully believed in the 'touch it once' philosophy for sorting the mail. If it was junk mail you could just toss it in the shredder. If it was something that you were actually forced to read, you opened it, read it and tossed it in the shredder. Technically, there was an optional filing step, but filing meant that there were records and Maria wasn’t a fan of those.

Her latest piece of mail made Maria pause the natural motion to the shredder. She checked the large envelope again. It was still a standard US Post Office Priority envelope. Her address at the Stark business offices was neatly printed on the lines for addresses – all but the zip code. The zip was made by a different hand – probably the post office employee that processed the envelope. Sure, no one remembered any zip code but their own, but if you had someone's address, you usually had someone's zip code.

She could have it traced and see if there was any security camera footage about the sender, but the note that was inside was probably the only other clue she needed.

_Dear Maria,_

_I was hoping you'd be able to make the game. Don't worry about the hats. I loosened the bands, so they wouldn't squeeze your brain. Thanks by the way for your well timed assistance._

_Sincerely,_

Sincerely unsigned, but it was only one of three people that would have worried about the effects of a hat on her brain. She had laid out the two hats in front of her – White Sox and Cubs ball caps, new, with their adjustment straps fully open, as promised. The sender knew she was from Chicago, but that wasn't a secret at all. Next to the caps was a ticket for the White Sox vs. Orioles that afternoon. So either head into the enemy territory and root for Sox or declare your love for the Cubs and whomever was playing the Sox. Of course, if this was supposed to be a cover than you just send an Oriole's hat so the wearer can blend unnoticed into the crowd. The sender was thinking about baseball and not security.

There was also an Amtrak train ticket from Union Station in DC to Penn Station in Baltimore, an actual brochure with the light rail schedule from the station to Camden Yards and another brochure for the Charm City Circulator that ran a free shuttle from the station to the ballpark on game days. Paper schedules – the only people that used them were born outside the smart phone generation.

It technically could have been Romanov or Wilson, but it was obviously Rogers, born before the smart phone and before zip codes for that matter. While Maria and Romanov had been making the rounds of government offices, Wilson had been working down in North Carolina with a Stark research division trying to improve on the Falcon suit. The government had very much wanted to talk to Steve in private, but no one had wanted the spectacle of Captain America before those whiny babies in the Senate. After Steve was debriefed, he had gone underground, lying low, and trying to pick up the trail of the Winter Soldier.

As if there wasn't enough evidence against him, the ticket to the ball game was an actual ticket and not a printed sheet of paper with a barcode. It said that it had been bought at a stadium ticket counter. He had actually gone to Baltimore to buy the ticket. A check-in with Rogers was long overdue. While the world had bigger problems than one rogue Soviet spy who broke his brainwashing (assuming he had been brainwashed – it was just a theory), part of Maria's job was keeping track of assets. That was a sound reason for going to Baltimore and had nothing to do with the way her traitorous body responded every time she saw Rogers. She was much too responsible to have a crush on Captain America.

The wooden file drawer slid open soundlessly, revealing a selection of civilian and unmarked SHIELD boots and clothing – you never knew when you might have to go into combat with more than just pencil pushers. You prayed on a daily basis that you would get to go into real combat instead of to a meeting. Maria changed into her civvies, picked up the ticket and didn't hesitate when faced with the choice of ball cap.

***  
Baltimore was hot and humid, just like DC had been, but Maria didn't mind for a change. For the fun of it, she had ditched her tail on the way to the train station in DC. Sure, it wouldn't take them long to figure it out and some local FBI agents would track her down any second, but still it was good to exercise one's skills. She had skipped the light rail and the bus and walked to the stadium instead. 

It was downhill to the Inner Harbor which was in all its summer glory – the tall wooden masts of the _USS Constellation_ , families carrying balloons and stuffed whales coming out of the National Aquarium. There were all manner of tourists trying to pretend that the polished up Inner Harbor wasn't in the same city that was the basis of _The Wire_.

It was more than an hour to the first pitch, but she was in a river of people heading to the stadium, walking through old blue collar neighborhoods next to the old B&O train yards. There were metal plaques embedded in the concrete on Eutaw Street where homeruns had been literally knocked out of the park. The truth was that the stadium was less than 25 years old – or so Maria had read googled on the train ride up. Surfing the official Oriole's website had been a bit like reading propaganda posters, but Maria tried not to go into anything blind.

Now seeing the soaring steel structure with the brick facade blending right into the streets of Baltimore, Maria was beginning to understand why Rogers had picked it as a meet-up. The architects had made a serious effort to make Oriole Park feel like the ball parks of the early 1900s, just like Wrigley Field in Chicago. It was captured in the scale and a hundred little details. They must have succeeded in capturing the nostalgia, because Steve Rogers looked right at home when she got to her seat. 

"You came." He was on his feet, holding a paper tray with a loaded hotdog and fries and practically beaming at her. "Here, let me get out of your way." He bent down and picked up plastic cup filed with beer and stepped into the aisle. 

Maria still didn’t know what was up, but they were obviously playing tourist. She smiled and checked for tails. "Thanks, Steve. You're always a gentleman. If you don't mind, I'd like the aisle." 

He kind of hesitated. And then opened his eyes wide and said, "Oh!" as he stepped to the inside seat. As Maria sat down next to him, he leaned over. "That's a modern thing right? Back in my generation you offered the lady the inside seat so she wouldn't get bumped by the hot dog vendors."

Maria really wanted to say something snarky, but the look on his face was sincere and charming. "You try not to pin in the paranoid agent. You know, the one with ordinary skills"

"I accept that you're better off on the aisle. I don't accept that you're ordinary."

Jesus Christ, Maria felt the heat come to her face. Had this bastard actually made her blush by just batting his baby blues and throwing her a compliment?

"Hey, can I get you a beer or a soda? I think they have wine too if you like, but that just seems a little weird to me. Actually, crab cakes at the ball park seem a little weird to me, but I suppose they might have always had those down here in Maryland."

"How much beer have you had?" Maria laughed, trying to keep up their cover and shake off her own embarrassment. He was like a kid at an amusement park.

"Just this one…not that it matters much to me." Steve shrugged as he took a sip.

Right, Captain America couldn't get drunk. Maria could certainly handle a few beers, but that's not how you stayed sharp on a mission. "I'll just take a diet soda."

"OK. There's a lot of terrific food, by the way. I made some dinner reservations for after the game in case you don't want to fill up, but I've got to tell you that the Korean tacos were great. I mean, I suppose its ballpark food, but I've added Korean food to my list."

And from all that, Maria still wasn't getting the mission. "Yeah, that all sounds great. So what else have you been checking out here? See any old friends, like James? I bet you guys watched a lot of games at …" Maria checked out his ball cap to see if it was the Yankees or the Mets, but it wasn't. "…at Dodger Stadium?"

Steve pulled off his ball cap. "Ebbets Field - Brooklyn Dodgers. I know they moved to California in the 50s. I'm not exactly sure about where my loyalties should be right now." 

Was he talking about his own loyalty to Bucky or was this a deeper question about where Steve's loyalties should be? Back in the 40s it was all very simple - you picked your country, right or wrong. Steve wakes up in the 21st century and immediately becomes attached to a UN based agency that it turns out was infiltrated by Nazis before it was ever born. Now with the collapse of SHIELD, he wasn't sure where he was supposed to be.

This was going to be a very different issue than Coulson trying to run his team like SHIELD wasn't disbanded and its agents wanted by the US government. She couldn't help that – Phil was stubborn. She had given him the party line and tried to give him a safe harbor in Stark Industries, but Phil wasn't the kind of guy that went in for deep cover. He couldn't spend years pretending to be a sellout to corporate America while secretly ferreting out HYDRA and waiting for the moment that a new SHIELD could come together. Maria got that, but that was her mission - be swallowed by a corner office and keep her assets on point.

She had an agent in front of her who needed that reassurance. "Hey, our loyalties have to be toward simpler ideals, like stopping the bad guys and not just swearing allegiance to an acronym."

He was looking at her, looking at her hard. "It's easier for you. Your team hasn't changed names or moved around like mine has." He nodded at her cap. "So a White Sox fan?"

Maria shrugged. "I'm not much of a baseball fan. I just know that my father was a Cubs fan."

"Uh-huh." Steve was thinking hard about that and that made Maria smile. "You know, I think Natasha would say I was pretty terrible at this. I get all caught up in a baseball park that reminds me of home and end up asking you out on date to something that doesn't interest you."

Date? Maria only let her head gleefully spin out of control for a second. Date was just their cover story. Wasn't it just their cover story? Steve was getting better and better at being a spy, but he was still a novice. Then again, he was looking really convincing. "Oh my god, this is a date, isn't it?"

He gave her the fish-eye. "Yeah, I know that my note was cryptic, but I was trying to respect the contact rules that we laid out. God, I am terrible at this."

"You asked me on a date?" Maria enunciated every word as she tried to work it out in her head. She didn’t actually intend the incredulous tone, but it may have come out that way.

"Look, I'm sorry. Wow, Natasha was trying to tell me this wasn't a good idea."

"What? What did Romanov say about me?" Maria liked Romanov, because Romanov was a professional, just like Maria. It didn’t mean that she trusted Romanov.

"Well it's not that she said anything. You know she keeps suggesting women that I might want to ask out, whether I want her to or not."

"Yeah, she's the yenta of the spy world. Cut to the chase."

"Well, since _everything_ , I've been thinking about you in a different way, and when I asked her what she thought about me asking you out, Natasha kind of changed the subject."

"Really?" Maria said, wondering if she should slap Romanov on the back or kick her in the ass.

"You know, I don’t think she meant anything by it. Maybe she didn’t think we'd be a good match."

Of course Romanov didn't think they were a good match – who would think they were a good match? Maria didn't think she was a match with anyone. Fantasizing that it might be nice to have Steve Rogers as friend with benefits was not the same as going out on a date with him or _being a good match._

"Yeah, we're done with Romanov's opinions. Tell me about the part where you've been thinking about me differently." Did she just say that out loud? Apparently she had, and for once in her life, Maria didn't feel bad about being self-indulgent.

"It's just when you were rescuing us and you pulled off that helmet, I just noticed how – well I mean, I didn't _just_ notice. Look, you're super competent and have a sense of humor to boot. It's, it's a - you know, I could stop."

"You are terrible at this." Maria laughed just a little.

Steve let out a sigh as he nodded and frowned.

"But we can work past that." Maria took his Dodgers cap and put it on his head. This distracted him and allowed her to steal the fries. She was eating his French fries. "So you were telling me how hot competency is."

All the tension in his body just melted, and he took her hand in his. She was holding hands with Captain America. Things in her body fluttered like she was twelve. What was it about this guy that made you reach for an age of innocence? The things in the back of Maria's brain were not innocent at all and required a lot more contact than hand holding.

"Hey! You promised to feed me. I need my hand for that."

He just smiled at her, picked up a fry and fed it to her.

***

By the 7th inning, Maria had sampled not only hot dogs and Korean tacos, but also had caved in and had drunk half of Steve's beer. She didn't know what was weirder – having a date with Steve Rogers or actually playing hooky from work and taking the day off. Maybe the weirdest part was that she wasn't feeling guilty about it. 

The crack of the bat sent the crowd to their feet as a ball sailed over the right field wall. Someone was going to have to put another metal plaque on Eutaw Street. It had been the home team at bat, so the crowd was also going wild. Maria didn't give a crap about the game, but it was making her happy to see Steve caught up in it. And then she wasn't thinking anymore because Steve was kissing her. Maria wasn't going to remember the details later because she was so focused on her heart starting to race. Then Steve leaned back. "Wow, that was pretty forward of me. I'm sorry, I-"

"Romanov was completely wrong."

"I'm glad you think that going out on a date is a good idea too."

"Yeah, I do, but that's not the only thing she was wrong about. You're not terrible at kissing."

Steve turned beet red, and Maria couldn't stop herself from smiling. He hadn't sent any return train tickets. Maybe they could skip dinner and find someplace where she could try to make him blush again.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Tsuki_no_bara for not letting me off the hook when she beta'd this story.


End file.
